Anonymous wrote:Our previous daycare offers drop in care. It's 65$ a day - not bad. I try to take off or work from home these days to save the expense.

Ours does as well and we've used this, but they only do this for previously enrolled kids. I know one family that enrolled their kids there for the summer program during first grade and then used the daycare through 5th grade (that's as high as they did before/after care) for snow days. It was a Kindercare and they basically only closed in extreme cases.

Find 3 other families, each with one or two kids who basically get along. That gives you 8 adults. Call it a "schools out babysitting coop" to make it formal. Issue everyone 1 point per child for joining. When the school calendar comes out in the summer, go through and mark all the known days off. Have people sign up in advance for one each. Parents pay the babysitting parent 1 point for providing a day of care for each kid. Include a teacher or two in the families who join if possible. As a teacher I'd be happy to watch someone else's kids on a snowday when I'm home anyhow, in exchange for you watching my kids on a teacher work day.

If parents want on their babysitting day they can hire a neighborhood teen (or two) to help out keeping the kids happy and occupied. Their call, their dime. But each parent might not have to take off more than one day all year for babysitting kids, and then maybe one day each for a snow day (if there are a lot of snowdays). Far better than having to lose a week of work.

We've had great experiences with Urban Adventure Squad in DC (http://www.urbanadventuresquad.com) and Create Art Space in Silver Spring.

Anonymous wrote:Try to find a SAHM who would like extra money. Arrange for this BEFORE you need it.

I agree. I am a SAHM who does NOT want to watch children for extra money, but I know some in my neighborhood do. If you have a neighborhood listserve, or a facebook page for your community, church, or possibly your child's school, you can post asking if any moms do this. Or maybe ask other parents if they know of anyone doing this. I would not ask a specific parent, because that puts them "on the spot."

It depends on how many children you have and ages.

In DC, DC Parks and REC have camps for some days - but some of the programs are for ages 6 and up. I have a just turned 5 YO so PreKer is not eligible for the same programs as my older children which makes it difficult.

Other places include the Y, Hooped, Urban Adventure Squad but once again some have age restrictions.

None of these have snow day programs.

Also it gets expensive paying for 3 children with aftercare for a day in something like Hooped - over $150 a day with extended day.

In the end, we usually just get an all day sitter as my employer offers back-up care for when school is closed. It is highly subsidized and a lot cheaper than a camp program.

We have a list of high schoolers we use.

Find another family and take turns. Then you will only have one in four days to use of your vacation days. If you are a single parent, find another family until there are four adults taking turns.


This was our solution.


I tried this, but the other family didn't have a concept of fairness. I'd take off work for a snow day or teacher work day, watch her two kids for the day, and then she'd invite my kids over for an evening (when I was home) and she would say "OK now I'm even for you watching my kids". Did not seem even to me. I quit watching her kids.


Why didn't you speak up and say, "No, we are not eve. You need to take the next snow day."


I should have, but they were our next door neighbors and I thought it would be easier to just say no in the future.

You should find another family. I found other two families in our neighborhood (7 kids total, including ours). We trade off and it's been fabulous. My oldest is in middle school now. It won't be long before he'll be babysitting on snow days for families that don't have backup arrangements.

Try to find a SAHM who would like extra money. Arrange for this BEFORE you need it.

Use to have before/aftercare that covered a lot of the days off. But still not open if administrative offices are closed/so is the daycare. BUT they did cover delayed openings etc. We moved schools with no care this year we have used vacation days, I can work from home one day a month, I've brought kids into the office - set them up in a spare office with ipads. Trade off with spouse, find other families to share the care. Its usually a very tentative last minute kind of thing. It also depends on the conditions - in the last big snow even walking to friends houses was a chore and our work allowed us to stay home.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A lot of the martial arts studios and gymnastics places run camps when school is out. Jcc also offers camp days. You just need to call and book.

Do places like martial arts studios and gymnastics studios take kids who are not already on the rolls there for regular classes the rest of the time? Just curious. I would think that due to liability reasons these places would do these one-day things for kids who are already enrolled there, but not kids who are totally unknown to them. I guess that registering in advance and filing whatever health forms etc. they need would make it OK but I'm not sure how they would structure their instruction for kids who were just walk-ins for one day.

I don't have a kid who needs this kind of care but am just genuinely curious how it would work at places like that. Anyone?

Yes, they do (or at least the ones that I'm familiar with do) - you just have to fill out some forms and sign a waiver. someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but I think it's like signing up for regular camp at a place like this, you don't have to be taking classes, you just fill out the camp forms and sign up.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Find another family and take turns. Then you will only have one in four days to use of your vacation days. If you are a single parent, find another family until there are four adults taking turns.

This was our solution.

I tried this, but the other family didn't have a concept of fairness. I'd take off work for a snow day or teacher work day, watch her two kids for the day, and then she'd invite my kids over for an evening (when I was home) and she would say "OK now I'm even for you watching my kids". Did not seem even to me. I quit watching her kids.

Why didn't you speak up and say, "No, we are not eve. You need to take the next snow day."

I should have, but they were our next door neighbors and I thought it would be easier to just say no in the future.

Ask on the neighborhood listserv if there are high school kids who would be interested in babysitting on days school is closed.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Find another family and take turns. Then you will only have one in four days to use of your vacation days. If you are a single parent, find another family until there are four adults taking turns.

This was our solution.

I tried this, but the other family didn't have a concept of fairness. I'd take off work for a snow day or teacher work day, watch her two kids for the day, and then she'd invite my kids over for an evening (when I was home) and she would say "OK now I'm even for you watching my kids". Did not seem even to me. I quit watching her kids.

Why didn't you speak up and say, "No, we are not eve. You need to take the next snow day."

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Find another family and take turns. Then you will only have one in four days to use of your vacation days. If you are a single parent, find another family until there are four adults taking turns.

This was our solution.

I tried this, but the other family didn't have a concept of fairness. I'd take off work for a snow day or teacher work day, watch her two kids for the day, and then she'd invite my kids over for an evening (when I was home) and she would say "OK now I'm even for you watching my kids". Did not seem even to me. I quit watching her kids.

Anonymous wrote:I don't have kids but I was wondering same thing, can u just set something up where u can waltz into a daycare on snowday or set up in advance for taeacher day?

Yep. After care programs call these Drop Ins. We go to Kids After Hours (KAH) and they charge a set amount for drop ins.